Biography
Raven Cuellar, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor and licensed clinical psychologist at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Cuellar is the Program Director of the ACTION Childhood Trauma Clinic, an outpatient specialty clinic dedicated to providing trauma-focused assessment and psychotherapy, as well as training, outreach and consultation to service providers, organizations and diverse communities throughout New Mexico. She is passionate about providing evidence-based treatment to underserved and marginalized communities, equity and social justice, training and supervision in models of trauma treatment, cultural responsivity, and methods of promoting empowerment and resilience in youth and families. Dr. Cuellar provides training and workforce development for mental health providers, child welfare and juvenile justice personnel, medical faculty and administration on employee and trainee wellness and resilience, recognizing and responding to secondary traumatic stress and burnout, promotion of trauma-informed systems of care, and on various types of psychotherapy and clinical issues. She is an active member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and the current Co-Chair of the NCTSN Secondary Traumatic Stress Collaborative Group.
Personal Statement
Dr. Cuellar is an active member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and is the current Co-Chair of the NCTSN Secondary Traumatic Stress Collaborative Group. She has co-developed a large set of resources on secondary traumatic stress, well-being and resilience for helping professionals, which can be accessed online at: https://www.nctsn.org/trauma-informed-care/secondary-traumatic-stress. Her leadership roles within the NCTSN also include: the Peer Support Service planning team which hosts monthly peer support groups and activities; the Terrorism and Disaster Network; the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) Collaborative Group, the NCTSN Connects Planning Group, and the 2022 NCTSN All-Network Conference organizing team. Dr. Cuellar also serves on the advisory board for the Secondary Traumatic Stress Innovations and Solutions Center (STS-ISC). She is actively engaged with the Healthcare Professional Wellbeing Academic Consortium (PWAC).
Areas of Specialty
Trauma and Interpersonal Victimization: PTSD, complex developmental trauma, dissociation, traumatic grief, factors mitigating risk for re-victimization, identity development in traumatized sexual and gender minority youth, impact of historical trauma and experiences with systematic oppression/ marginalization
Psychotherapy: Attachment, Self-regulation and Competency (ARC); Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy (TARGET); Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT); somatic and archetypal approaches to healing; family systems conflicts and attachment difficulties; fostering relational safety and empowerment in individuals with histories of trauma and adversity; identity and self-development in LGBTQ and gender diverse individuals; coping with identity/ role conflicts and distress in medical training
Provider Wellness and Resilience: Recognizing and addressing burnout, empathic strain, secondary traumatic stress (STS), moral distress and institutional betrayal; fostering wellness, resilience and reflective capacity at individual and organizational levels; workforce development in rural, low-resourced service systems
Education and Training: supervision, teaching, and training on trauma and stress; cultural adaptation of EBTs; therapeutic alliance with challenging caregivers; use of self in psychotherapy; STS-informed supervision and training; building trauma-informed systems of care; implementation science; problem-based learning
Gender
Female